TNAG-0996-FCO40-1219-Inspection-of-Hong-Kong-and-General-Department--February-198-1981 — Page 38

ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE

this recommendation. I am unsure whether such cut could safely be made. It would certainly leave little margin for absences or training new staff. Although the number of papers registered is not high, a lot of working papers have to be sifted and filed.

51.

More important, I am concerned that the registry staff are not consistently striking the right balance between the requirements of Registrar's Branch (and posterity) and the operational needs of the Desk Officers. I was told that new papers often took several days to be registered and submitted with the file. In principle new papers should reach the Desk Officers the same day. I recommend that the Registry Clerks give priority to this and that the Desk Officers and Liaison Officer as well as the Registry Supervisor keep them up to

the mark.

52.

If following the review in six months' time three staff are retained, I recommend that when the Registry Clerks are fully trained, Desk Officers should give them the opportunity to do some routine drafting.

53. Telephones, office machinery, publications and DSP holdings were examined by Mr Pearce of the Management Services Section of the Inspectorate.

Telephones

54.

With the agreement of Mr Clift, we recommend that extension 5490 be removed from his office.

Office Machinery

55.

Miss Maxwell, the Departmental Machinery Officer, maintains a full set of XAS 30s in accordance with DSP and`all items of machinery were easily accounted for.

56.

We recommend that the Kalle Infotec 1000 be changed for a Kalle 1402 as this is a cheaper and more efficient machine for the number of copies required. by the Department. We also recommend that ASD provide the Department with a

Dictamini transcriber.

Newspapers, Periodicals and Reference Books

57.

The Department's requirements for publications is not excessive. We recommend that LRD continue to supply the publications listed in Annex B. We also recommend that the copy of The Times received by the Department should be seen first by Miss Maxwell who has an operational need to see the Deaths column.

DSP Holdings

58.

The Department's holdings of DSO differed on two counts from the list provided by ASD. We recommend that the Department institute a search for one copy of Volume 8 and one copy of Volume 20 and report the findings to ASD Procedures Unit.

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